This has thing ring of truth, for me--but do you see virtualization taking the kind of extreme route it'd need to provide more microkernel (at least, like EROS) benefits? A different OS instance for every program? That seems like a pretty kludgy way to do it.
A different OS instance for every program? That seems like a pretty kludgy way to do it.
Kludgy or not, there have been some moves in that direction. People often distribute "VMWare appliances", i.e., a single application packaged up as a VMWare instance; and FreeBSD system administrators often run different services in separate jails.
There are other constraints on the size of a program, though. All other things equal, larger programs tend to be harder to maintain, and proportionally buggier. This is completely independent of the cost of memory, the size of processor caches, etc. -- There's nothing like Moore's law affecting the human brain's ability to understand sprawling, tangled code bases.
Also: Bugs in device drivers tend to affect stability much more than in userland programs.
